The Money Market Association of the Philippines held its second General Assembly (GA) for the year on July 28 at the Grand Ballroom of the InterContinental Hotel, Makati City. The Guest of Honor and Speaker was no less than Jose Clemente “Joey” S. Salceda, Governor of Albay province and Economic Adviser to Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The speech of Salceda was entitled, “A Preliminary Assessment of the Arroyo Presidency,” and the entire theme of his discussion is best summed up by his opening slide which read, “A legacy of a strong economy that is fairer to the poor and that provides a solid base for the next generation.” The “legacy” he was pertaining to was that of “the Arroyo Presidency.”

Specifically, Salceda pointed out in his speech the accomplishments of the Arroyo Administration:
1.      Productivity. Amid global crisis, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew in 2008 full-year by 3.8% and Gross National Product (GNP) by 6.2%. GDP growth rate from 2001 to 2008 is at 4.6%, the highest among all administrations. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) was the main target of the Administration, as the industry does not follow the cyclicality of exports, contrary to semiconductors and electronics, the target industry of previous administrations. The credit rating of the Philippines, for the first time in 12 years, was upgraded by Moody’s mainly because of the increase in our Gross Internal Revenue (GIR) by $3B in 2008. Cumulative growth rate of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) remittances was at 13.7% from 2000 to 2008. Average inflation during the Arroyo Administration was also pegged at 5.6%, the lowest among all administrations.
 
2.      Fiscal Policies. Government revenues increased by a total of P300B since 2005 because of the implementation of the Reformed Value Added Tax (RVAT) program, and by P210B because of power tariffs. Infrastructure development focused on the development of “Super Regions,” primarily the Subic-Clark hub. From 2000 to 2008, National Government (NG) debt has gone down from 78% to 54% as a percentage of GDP, NG foreign debt to GDP from 33% to 24%, NG domestic debt to GDP from 32% to 30%, and GOCC debt to GDP from 15% to 7%. As a result of these measures, international reserves increased from $16B to $40B during the same period.
 
3.      Employment. 8.1 million jobs have been created during the President’s entire term, or a generation of around 900T jobs per year; this translates to unemployment being reduced nominally by 1.7 million during the term. Minimum wage has also been rising by 5.3% annually since 2001, now pegged at the P345-P382 range in the National Capital Region (NCR) for 2008.
 
4.      Poverty and Hunger. Self-rated poverty was the only statistic worth mentioning according to Salceda as it was reduced from 60% in 2000 to 47% in 2008. Poverty incidence was reduced by less than a meagre 1% since 2000 and hunger incidence even rose by 5% from the same year; the number of poor families stood at 4.7 million and the number of poor people at 27.6 million as of yearend 2008.
 
5.      Agriculture. During the President’s term, 1.8 million hectares of land have been redistributed to farmers, well-above the target of distributing 200T hectares per year; more land is expected to be redistributed via the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER). Microfinance loans totalling to P165B have been distributed, mostly to those in the agricultural sector and cottage industries.
 
6.      Education. In 2008, teacher-to-pupil ratio has been reduced to 1:36 in elementary and 1:39 in high school; classroom-to-pupil ratio was also brought down to 1:45. Education spending, however, was only at 13% of the national budget versus 15% in 2002. Participation rate for 2008 is 85% in elementary and 61% in high school, while mastery in the National Achievement Test (NAT) was 65% for the former and 47% for the latter.
After the presentation of Gov. Salceda, an open forum followed, spearheaded by a panel of discussants from MART members. The panel was composed of: Atty. Arlene Joan T. Agustin, First Vice-President and Treasurer of GE Money Bank; Lester Joseph Castolo, Senior Vice-President and Treasurer of Multinational Investment Bancorporation; Pedro M. Florescio III, Executive Vice-President and Treasurer of Banco de Oro Universal Bank; and Johnson L. Sia, Treasurer of the ING Group – Philippines.

Questions coming from the panel ranged from the possibility of strengthening the mandate of the Bangko Sentral (BSP), the President’s future political plans, the prospects for recovery of the market as a whole, and future plans of the government concerning fiscal policies.
 
During the ceremonies, Toyota Financial Services Corp. – Philippines was also inducted as the newest member of MART. Ramon L. Lim, First Senior Vice President of Philippine National Bank (PNB), was the Master of Ceremonies.